Re: is SIP an Emergent Property

On Monday, January 20, 2003, at 7:50:29 PM, Dossy wrote:

> On 2003.01.20, =?iso-8859-1?q?Dierk_K=F6nig_ <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I've seen [...craftpersons...] performing in a way they cannot repeat,
>> but still based on amazing skills, experience and wisdom acquired over
>> numerous years.

> If they couldn't repeat it, then it's still luck.

Well, this must be some new use of the word luck that I wasn't previously
familiar with. I often perform somewhat above or below my nominal level,
and sometimes WAY above or below. I don't attribute it to luck, but would
agree that it is something that I don't fully understand or do not as yet
have conscious access to.

> The fact that these people have the experience and wisdom generally
> implies that the level of ability or quality of their performance is
> predictable and repeatable.

Over a range, yes. Sometimes even Michael plays over his head. I don't
think it's just luck.

> I've seen programmers get code to pass tests "by luck" but I wouldn't
> consider them skilled programmers necessarily because their performance
> passes all the tests.  They're skilled because they can consistently
> write code that makes tests pass intentionally.

Yes. But sometimes my tests pass easily, and sometimes it's difficult.
Luck? Or was I not playing my own game?

> My point?  Dan might have applied bookkeeping to a specific domain
> (construction, lets say) and it subjectively appeared to him that it was
> a remarkable thing.  However, unless he can apply it in some consistent
> fashion, I'd assert that either he was wrong, or if he was right, it was
> just luck.

"Some" consistent fashion, yes. I could agree with that.

> If he can apply it repeatedly with consistent (expected) results, then
> communicating how it works should simply be a matter of keeping a
> journal (not the bookkeeping kind, of course -- no pun intended) and
> publishing it.  Simply a "day in the life of a bookkeeper" type of thing
> where he documents everything he does and how he does it, step by step,
> so that you, I, or Ron Jeffries could do it as well.  We won't
> necessarily understand what we're doing or why we're doing it, but given
> the instructions to follow (like the CPU processing opcodes) we would
> "be" Dan Palanza, doing what he does.

And I think that this should be possible.

> After enough repetition and time passing, we might begin to understand
> deeper reasons for doing what we're doing and then we've learned
> something.  Then, since we're intelligent people, we could use what
> we've learned in the past and what we've just learned to synthesize new
> ideas, and change the behavior to suit our individual specific needs.

Yes. I think that /doing/ the XP practices teaches us. Dick Gabriel says
"The work teaches us." A script to follow, from Dan, might teach us.

> The fact that Dan has yet to produce something so trivially simple as a
> journal of his specific, exact activities, suggests to me that he's
> either intentionally hiding something, or he's outright lying and isn't
> even doing it himself, that's why there is no process to document.

If someone were to say something like this about me, no matter how bizarre
and crazy my ideas sounded, it would be difficult to take it as gently as
Dan has. I believe that a general respectful approach to our colleagues
might be more appropriate, even when we have doubts. And there are other
models of what's going on that are at least as credible as the above.

> Sadly, I can't see how this is even remotely on-topic for the SIP folks
> here, but maybe someone can draw a connection.  If you can't, please
> reply offline directly.  Thanks.

Nearly good point. I think that SIP is probably one of the XP-ish ideas
which is most amenable to bookkeeping notation. But I don't understand
bookkeeping, and barely understand SIP, so I could be way off the rails.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Yesterday's code should be as good as we could make it yesterday.
The fact that we know more today, and are more capable today,
is good news about today, not bad news about yesterday.


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